The Transport

I

FROM Alaska and the Western islands, from the Pacific slopes, from the great Northwest and Southwest, from the Mississippi Valley, the Gulf States, and the Eastern States, they have congregated; drawn together, forming and reforming into ever-increasing armies, miners and bank clerks, college professors and farmers’ sons, these vast legions have been gathered, silently and almost unobserved, into a handful of seaport towns; and from these ports of embarkation America’s Army of Liberty, without interruption, passes across three thousand miles of sea to foreign lands. Beyond conception is the number that has been transported; nor has the tide yet reached its height. In the wonder of their gathering and in the glory of their deeds beyond the seas, perhaps have been unnoticed some aspects of their transit. Impatient hours are their hours of travel across the sea. But to those whose duty it is to insure their safe and speedy passage, they are long hours of anxious expectancy. The description of a single passage across the Atlantic will tell the tale. Be there a thousand or ten thousand within the narrow hull, the general aspects are the same.

The city’s streets reflected the withering heat of early August, and that heat, on a certain August morning, was the city’s chief concern. As I passed down through the cañon walls of buildings, I felt a certain resentment that these millions of people were taking up their daily labors apparently unmoved by the vast emigration that passed almost unnoticed before them. I was proud to be a participant in this mighty movement, and yet I was envious of these busy people, envious of the uninterrupted even tenor of their lives.

There was a slight coolness on the river, but beyond the portal of the ferry came again the heat of pavements and the dry hot smells of city streets. Long rows of buildings stretched north along the river, and above the roofs here and there towered high sparless masts and huge funnels painted in strange bands of color, emitting thin wisps of smoke or steam which rose almost perpendicularly into the air. Along the rough pavement passed an interminable procession of rumbling trucks piled high with great boxes stenciled with addresses over-seas. Soldiers and sailors moved along the sidewalk. There was a restless but ordered sense of activity.

Beyond the guarded gates to one of the nearest piers the steel shed-like building, which enclosed the dock-ends and extended its two-story projections out along each pier, opened wide black doorways. Through them electric trucks passed in and out from the yards crowded with freight to the dark interior.

Inside the building was the same orderly confusion. Up to the high ceiling against every wall was piled an infinite variety of boxed, baled, and crated material: wagons, gun-carriages, aeroplanes and caissons, provisions of every description, medical and commissary supplies, lumber, canvas, rope and wire, barrels, casks, and metal cylinders of fluid. Between the barricades of freight, and almost indistinct in the gloom to sun-dazed eyes, a long line of soldiers stretched far down the building, and beyond a distant corner out on the enclosed pier to the gangways to the ship. They were hot, dirty, and tired with long hours of railway travel, and they moved forward in slow advances of ten or a dozen feet, resting their packs, meanwhile, on the concrete floor and leaning on the polished blue barrels of their rifles. Bronzed with their months of training, their dark faces offered little contrast to the rakish service caps of khaki or the drab of service uniforms. They were tired, but their discipline was unbroken, and there was a noticeable gayety in the ranks and the spirit of a holiday already at hand.

Here was a regiment of pioneers, weatherbeaten faces making dark contrast to straight blue eyes and sunfaded hair. Matching them in appearance was a regiment of city-bred, whose recently broadened shoulders swung easily beneath the heavy packs. Glistening with rivulets of sweat, the black faces of the negro companies responded to every diversion with instant smiles and laughter. Among the men passed and repassed officers in smart inconspicuous uniforms. They were young, for the most part, but here and there were older faces.

The doors of the pier shone with sunlight that filtered down between the pier-shed and the high side of the waiting transport. At each door the narrow gangway ascended sharply to the ship’s side. At two gangways the troops were embarking; at the others stevedores were loading supplies and freight.

There was no view of the vessel, only glimpses of plates of rivet-studded steel through square sunlit openings — steel at this door painted a sky-blue, and at the next door and the door beyond in slanting stripes of black and white camouflage. There was a smell of salt water in the air and a reminiscent tang of other seafaring days in a huge coil of tarred hawser.

Beyond the steep ascent of the gangway there was light and a sudden sense of heat. Like a mighty building the sides of the transport lifted high against the roof of the dock-shed and extended from the head of t he basin to the river at the far end. Abaft the forward cargodeck, the superstructure rose deck on deck to the culminating sweep of the bridge, full sixty feet above the greasy water of the slip; and above the cargodeck the foremast and the mainmast rose high against the blue sky, dwarfing the stocky kingheads which directed the long cargo booms. Across the face of the ship the blue, white, black, and gray camouflage shattered the otherwise orderly outline, giving to the vessel the fantastic appearance of some gayly painted plaything of a giant.

In the shadows of the decks, whiteclad officers directed the chaos of the embarkation; and up the gangways and down the black hatches in the deck two interminable files of soldiers issued like brown ropes from the doorways of the pier and smoothly slid across the narrow strip of water, to be coiled away somewhere in the caverns below the decks.

A dozen women in cool blue Red Cross uniforms mingled with the crowd. Y.M.C.A. workers busily offered their final services. Trunks and boxes, officers’ baggage, came over the side and were snatched off by perspiring men and hurried below. Everywhere were ceaseless activity, heat, the confused sounds of many voices, and the smells of the ship, the water, and sweating bodies.

The embarkation was completed, and the long tan lines that for seeming hours had mounted steadily the slender gangways had terminated in the steel decks below. We lunched in the once richly decorated saloon where men and women had gayly gathered in long voyages to the distant Orient. But to-day the central table was lined with naval officers, and on either side, at other tables, sat the several hundred army officers who were accompanying us. In the soldiers’ quarters galleyfires had been long lighted and dinner was being rapidly served to the men. With cup and tin plate in hand, they passed in line before the serving-tables, then scattered about the decks and voraciously devoured their first meal on shipboard.

All afternoon the loading of baggage and supplies continued. Everywhere about the decks the soldiers wandered, examining their new surroundings or clustering about boxes and hatchcovers to write last letters before departure. Night came. Far across the river a myriad lights gleamed like faint stars against the soft sky. From the darkening river rose the voices of passing vessels, ferries calling out to each other in the growing dusk, deep resonant whistles of ocean vessels and the raucous cries of tugboats. Below decks on the transport a piano dominated all local sounds with the staccato metallic notes of the latest music-hall melodies. About the piano a hundred soldiers gathered in a hollow circle, in which two negro soldiers, streaming with sweat, clogged violently, with white flashes of smiles and clapping hands. From the roofs of the docksheds bright flood-lights illuminated the transport with an unreal daylight, and far above their glare, in the still hot roof of the sky, faint stars shone with a pale white lustre.

It was midnight. Driven by the intense heat from below decks, the sleeping soldiers incrusted every level surface of the ship. On every square foot of deck, on life-boats, on life-rafts and piles of still unstowed baggage, on booms, hatch-covers, and gratings, they flung their bodies in sleep. Upturned to the glaring lights and the stars beyond, white faces lay as on some strange field of battle. Here and there halfnaked bodies turned or twisted heavily. Broad chests rose and fell in even breathing; bare feet extended stark and white against the deck. A man with a dark moustache across his lip cried out a sharp incoherent sentence of foreign .words. Beside him a tall young man with clean-cut boyish features tossed restlessly. As he shifted his weary body, his arm fell across the sleeping man beside him. I watched the arm unconsciously and almost tenderly tighten about the stolid figure, and then, as the touch brought back some far memory to his dreams, I saw his body relax, the fitful tossing ceased, and he sank into tired sleep.

It is late afternoon of the second day. For almost twenty-four hours we have been ready, awaiting the word which would send us on our way. During these long hours the soldiers swarmed restlessly about the ship. At frequent intervals the army band blared noisily popular patriotic airs, and the men roared out the ringing choruses in appreciation. But now there are certain signs which to an observing eye indicate nearing departure. The pilot, a young man with a jaunty black-andwhite checked cap is on the bridge chatting with the captain. Quietly, all but two of the hawsers have been cast off, and all but one gangway have been lowered away from the side. A vibration trembling deep within the great ship indicates that our engines are turning over. That test alone is indicative. The wail of our siren rises loud above the roofs, and now every man realizes that the long journey is at hand. There is a noticeable quiet.

Four tugs, with much churning of green water, puff noisily into the slip and fasten like leeches against our bow and stern. Soldiers crowd the rails. Everyone is on deck. From the upper deck, directly below the bridge, where I am standing with several of the ship’s officers, I watch with dull emotion these last material severings from a land that holds all that is life to me.

Bells jangle deep in the engine-room. The tugs surge against the ship. Suddenly I become conscious that we are moving. With my eye I line up a deckstanchion with a mark on the dockshed. The cheering becomes general, a wild triumphant tumult of sound, a roaring of these thousands of American voices.

The dock-sheds are deserted. No answering cheers meet our ears. From a doorway appears a single Irish stevedore, who waves his arms to us. All the cheering instantly focuses on him; he becomes to us America, and the roar of triumphant farewell swells up from the packed decks.

Slowly we slide past the dock and out into the stream. On the forward deck the army band smashes into the chorus of ‘Over There.’ Instantly the voices respond. It is tremendous, and there is a lump in my throat and tears of emotion stand in my eyes.

A cool breeze sweeps up the river. Piled high in lofty towers and pinnacles, the great city rises from the blue water, a gleaming silhouette against the sky. About its feet innumerable wharves, like extended fingers of a giant hand, clutch the water. A ferry-boat crowded with returning workers slides past us; there is a flutter of handkerchiefs from its decks. The band strikes up the ‘Star-Spangled Banner.’ Slowly we glide down the river, our decks massed with khaki-clad soldiers. The band plays continuously and the men join in every chorus, volleys of cheers drowning the music as ferries and pleasure vessels pass us. The long pile of gleaming buildings mounting to a single crag of white drops behind and we glide slowly past the green park at the island’s point. Against the clear sky the gray cobwebs of the bridges stand out in delicate tracery. Ferries and excursion boats pass close to us, and upturned women’s faces send us a last farewell.

From the after gun-deck I watch the towers darken in the soft evening light and sink slowly into the horizon. In the widening bay a great argosy rides at anchor. There are graceful sailing ships of other days, rejuvenated to begin a new life of usefulness. There are steel cargo-carriers, stolid honest burghers of the sea, strangely bedizened in their mad dress of camouflage; and between them dart the smart gray patrol boats.

Gray green, the massive figure of Liberty seems to pass us. Behind her the distant shore lies low on the horizon. The sun dips behind it and is gone. With arm uplifted the symbolic goddess seems to tender us a silent benediction.

We pass the Narrows and steam slowly through the passage in the great steel net that guards the harbor. On either hand, behind the soft green hills, must lie the guns that guard the seagate to the city. At last, the open sea !

The channel buoys drop behind us and suddenly I am conscious that the land has sunk below the horizon. Night begins to close down rapidly on the darkening sea. There is a steady whirring far above, and out of the sky appears a sea-plane that has come to escort us. Ahead, another strange shape looms in the sky, a silvery cigar almost invisible against the gray. A minute later ft passes over us and our decks are white upturned faces. From the left a long rakish craft climbs over the horizon, its graceful sides and low funnels patterned with converging stripes of white and black. Behind the destroyer is the gray bulk of a tall-stacked cruiser. A mile farther a submarine awash falls in on our right. Sky and sea merge slowly into night, and in the deepening dusk the escorting ships become phantom shapes that the eye must strain to see. Our long voyage is begun.

II

Morning came with dazzling sunshine and a calm blue sea. On right and left the cruiser and destroyer flanked our course. The submarine, sea-plane, and dirigible had disappeared. At noon I began my new duties as Junior WatchOfficer, and took my first of many fourhour watches on the port wing of the bridge.

The transport bore an enviable history. She was well armed, and her officers displayed unconsciously in their bearing the training which characterizes the American naval officer and places him in the enviable position which he holds to-day. The captain, a graduate of the Naval Academy, who had since continuously followed his profession in the regular navy in practically every quarter of the globe, possessed in a high degree those qualifications of professional ability and courtly personality which almost invariably stamp our naval officers. Among the other officers were many who had joined the Reserve Force on the outbreak of the war, men whose long experience on merchant vessels qualified them highly to perform their present invaluable service.

Early in the afternoon faint smears of light smoke edged the horizon, and a few minutes later the funnels of the convoy poked up above it. An hour later we were in their midst. Gathered from unnamed ports, these unnamed vessels met on a definite square mile or so of ocean known only to their commanders. Fantastically marked with camouflage of various colors, with our escorting cruisers and destroyers circling about us, we made our picturesque formation and began our united progress.

It may be pertinent at this point to explain that the true purpose of camouflage is not, as is popularly supposed, to render the ship invisible, but rather, by various arrangements of converging bands of colors, does it seek to conceal the relative direction or ‘bearing’ of the ship from enemy vessels which may sight it. So successful is this effect, that I have several times found it necessary to study carefully a vessel, to determine its actual direction; and of the vessels in our convoy one repeatedly gave us trouble, due to the fact that she constantly seemed to be falling off an undeterminable number of points from her actual course.

For four days the heat of a cloudless midsummer sky beat down upon the ship. With the breeze behind us, the movement of air was neutralized and we seemed to pass steadily through an intense calm. At night many of the soldiers slept on deck, and the long promenades were almost impassable with sleeping bodies. Below decks, by day, the soldiers were rapidly accustoming themselves to their new quarters. Meals were served with clocklike regularity to appease appetites sharpened by sea air. Daily the band played a concert on the deck, and the other ships of the convoy were a never-failing source of interest. All the day the men basked in the sunshine. It was to the majority of them a long-desired rest after their weeks of arduous training.

On the fifth day a hazy sky and rapidly moving gray clouds on the horizon gave promise of a change. By sunset the sky was dark with black clouds, and as day departed, an indescribable blackness settled over the ocean. Nowhere was sky or sea clearly discernible, except along the northern horizon, where a pale band of lemon light separated the pall above from the leadgray of the water and seemed to let in across the sea a heavy ray of light, such as might shine beneath the lowered curtain of a window in a darkened room. Against this clear bar of light the ships of the convoy on our port beam, in black silhouette, perched on the top of the horizon from which the ocean, like a blank wall, seemed vertically to descend. Now and then came the rumble of thunder from the south, where against the complete darkness of the sky the lightning fell from low-lying clouds in straight smooth liquid plunges to the sea.

At eight I took my watch on the port wing of the bridge. From my high prospect the bow of the ship was but indistinctly visible; aft, all was engulfed in darkness. The sea was smooth, but the impending storm was appalling. On clear nights it is none too easy to keep formation in a convoy, for, as a necessary protection against submarine attack, all lights are extinguished or totally obscured from sunset until dawn; but on such a night the danger of collision was immeasurably increased. In half an hour the lightning became incessant, and showed on every quarter of the horizon. Not the traditional jagged flashes, but smooth, falling columns of fire that seemed to pour from the clouds as molten steel is poured from the tapped hearth. Suddenly, the rain began — rain so dense that it obscured wholly whatever the darkness had left visible. Blotted out instantly were our companion ships, the incessant lightning showing only a falling curtain of silver threads, behind which my companions on the bridge seemed to move as vivid black and white figures projected on the screen by a cinematograph.

One hour later there was a brief respite, and in the abrupt relief, at each lightning flash, I could dimly see the black forms of our sister ships plunging evenly on the long swells. Our formation was still maintained and all was well. I was soaked through to the skin, but the air was warm, and the heavy coolness of saturated clothing compensated for the fatiguing heat of previous days.

At intervals the rain fell with even greater violence; and at midnight, when my watch was at an end, I left the bridge and groped my way below to my cabin with infinite relief.

Sunday dawned bright and cool, a heavy brilliant blue sea rolling in deep valleys and high mountains of sparkling water, the highest peaks slashed into flying spray by the knifeblade of a strong northeast wind. Against the blue sky cottony clouds tore like clippers before the wind; and over the moving surface of the sea the ships of the convoy, like gayly garbed ladies of the chorus, in their fantastic camouflage, pitched and rolled, taking now and then a flood of green water over the bow, which poured aft and spouted in cascades from the decks, then settling deep by the stern, with a clear sight under the forefoot. By night the sea had somewhat moderated — a deep ultramarine sea flicked with foam, and above it a pale sky of delicious blue, across which heavy pink clouds sailed slowly.

The soldiers stood the ordeal well, but the motion of the ship did not pass unnoticed and there were not a few cases of violent seasickness. For the ship’s officers and crew the storm was a mere detail in a routine in which storms and submarine warnings had become almost monotonous. There was a kind of fine fatalism in their attitude. To be sure, the submarine danger was at that time particularly acute, and one officer had left two ships torpedoed beneath him; but the realization that no precaution or safeguard was being neglected, and that, despite occasional sinkings scored by submarines, the Germans were playing a losing hand, kept confidence up to a high degree.

Too much cannot be said to the credit of the reserve officers of the transport service for the efficient service they perform. Many have voluntarily left positions of command on smaller merchantmen or passenger ships, to accept gladly the more arduous war-service in subordinate positions and at a material reduction in compensation. Back and forth, from continent to continent, they are transporting our army, running their zigzag courses in darkened convoys, ever ready to show their heels to the lurking foe, or, if necessary, to meet him face to face with steel from well-manned guns and the rocking blasts of depth-charges cast in the sea. Their hours are long; their recreation negligible; I never have heard a word of complaint from their lips.

Just aft of the mainmast, on the forward freight-deck, the superstructure of the ship rises abruptly a full three decks to the bridge, where I stood my watches. From side to side, across the beam of the ship, the bridge extends, a long broad promenade inclosed in the centre about the wheel and binnacle, and housed over on each end to protect the watch-officers from the weather. Beside the binnacle, which holds the compass, are the telegraphs or engineroom signals, by which the speed of the ship is regulated; and here, in fact, are the eyes and the brain-centre of the vessel From the starboard bridge the senior watch-officer gives his orders to the quartermaster at the wheel, and maintains a strict lookout for whatever of importance may appear on the surrounding sea. On the port side the junior watch-officer also scours the sea and at regular intervals inspects the ship, and performs such other duties as the senior watch-officer may put upon him.

Behind the bridge is the chart-house, where the navigating officer keeps his charts, astronomical instruments, and chronometers. And above is the signal-bridge, where the signalmen flicker their red and yellow flags in hurried words and sentences to other ships, or hoist aloft the gay, multicolored alphabet flags of the International Code by which coded messages are transmitted. Here too is the blinker by which in peaceful waters night-messages are flashed in dots and dashes of light; and, above all, the fingers of the wireless hold the vessel in close communication with the shore and with a wide radius of vessel-dotted sea.

The starboard wing of the bridge is held by the senior officer of the watch, and it is here that the captain and the other officers of the ship may be frequently seen. My station was on the port wing where, by day or night, at dawn or sunset, I watched the unending beauty of sky and sea and the long line of our flanking convoy.

‘Smoke on the horizon!’ With his glass the captain studied the thin wisp that faintly smeared the pale blue. Incredibly soon the stacks showed above the horizon. The navigating officer joined me. ‘She’s a big one,’ he commented. Two other ships on either side of the first became visible. Rapidly their hulls came up, the course west and passing a few miles to the south of us.

Like huge race-horses, they came steadily on, spun smoke trailing behind them. The huge finer towered above her companions, but all were maintaining an equally high speed.

‘She can carry ten thousand men. Think of it! ’ said the navigator.

For a moment I too was staggered at the thought; and then, as my eyes swept the vast heaving expanse of sea, the great vessel became a toy that floated there, a chip with its puny load. Despite the greatest feats of human ingenuity the sea remains incomparable, vast, unconquerable.

Already the great ship was a speck sinking below the horizon.

By night I saw Polaris high on the left dimmed by the multitude of surrounding stars. Ahead, rising from the sea, in the brief hours before the dawn, came Venus and Jupiter, like liquid drops of silver flame. Behind the swinging masts Orion extended his mighty length, and above him, far above the masts, the glittering Pleiades shone like some rare jeweled design of da Vinci pinned to the silken fabric of the night.

In the strange solitude of these long night hours, and in a silence broken only by the sound of the sea swirling and foaming past our sides, with its brilliant wake of phosphorescent light, or by the sudden shrill of the boatswain’s pipe and the heavy footfalls of the changing watch, my thoughts would wander to the peace and simple happiness of all that we were leaving behind us; of the unknown future that was awaiting us; of the hopes and fears of those thousands who slept almost within hand-touch within the thin steel walls; and then, with my eyes aching to pierce the night, to discern the black form of our convoy or to catch the white rushing path of a torpedo that might suddenly challenge our way, my thoughts would centre on the work at hand and on the submarine that might even now be trying to pierce the same surrounding night with its single eye. Then each breaking crest became a thing of suspicion, and I was fascinated and buoyant under the still suspense.

At two-hour intervals I inspected the great vessel from stem to stern. Here in the slow lifting and sinking of the bow there was a noise of parted waters. Everywhere watchers scanned the sea, silent sentries paced, prostrate sleepers encumbered the decks. There was eternal vigilance and complete oblivion. Far down in the engine-room sounded the mighty movement of the engines; their tremor pulsed the ship with life.

In the evenings there were movies in the ward-room. On a sheet fastened against the forward bulkhead, the Y.M.C.A. projector cast the reeling comedy or tragedy — familiar pictures from a land that was home: a flash of American rural scenes or a crowded street. It was home — our United States. How absorbed we became in the incident-crowded skein of some inconsequential and half-baked scenario! Forgotten for the moment was our present environment.

From the dark, tobacco-rifted room I groped to the deck to go on my watch. My eyes were dulled for the moment; then, as they pierced the clear night darkness and I saw the sea and the stars and the convoy, the magnitude of this great mid-Atlantic drama would burst upon me. Here was a mightier moving-picture than even the imagination could conceive, here was the most tremendous setting, here the actual dangers. Who knew what heroes might be among us an hour hence?

The white church flag, with blue cross, fluttered against a gray sky. From the bridge I could hear now and then the words of the chaplain, words of God and Country and Liberty. The soldiers surrounded him. The bandmaster lifted his baton. ’Onward, Christian Soldiers.’ The music of brass was lost in the music of deep voices:—

It was late morning. From a dozen lookouts within a few seconds had come the cry of ‘Land!’ On the far horizon for a little space the movement of the line of sky and sea seemed stilled; a low green-gray thread rested along the waters. Men crowded forward. They clung to the shrouds and climbed to every point of vantage. The green line whitened into cliffs, and through the glass appeared the slender white column of a lighthouse.

The band is on deck. It has played the ‘ Star-Spangled Banner. ’ There is a moment of silence; and then, with a crash of brazen instruments, the ‘Marseillaise’ begins. It is France!

The sails of fishing vessels dot the horizon. White bold cliffs lift higher; promontories jut seaward. A seagoing tug passes close to us, guns mounted fore-and-aft and racks of depth-charges on her fantail. From the peak a flag of vertical bars of blue, white, and red greets our eyes. Sailors in red-tufted white hats wave to us.

Now we can see green fields mounting slowly behind the white cliffs. As we near land other lighthouses appear, and now I can plainly see a ruined castle with gray unroofed walls.

We are moving slowly in column through the bold entrance to the harbor. Of a sudden appears the city, cast into the circling hillside; gray buildings with blue slate roofs; the white outlying walls of green-embowered châteaux; and above the still dark water of the harbor, the massive walls of ancient fortifications, with turrets and low towers.

The sky is very blue, the harbor is alive with vessels. The anchor-chain roars through the hawser-pipe. We are swinging slowly with the tide.

‘We are over, over there!’